In recent years, the amount of information (content) which is handled by an information appliance or a video/audio appliance has become enormous. Therefore, unless the user gives an instruction to the appliance by precisely specifying a content, the appliance cannot provide appropriate contents.
For example, an appliance has been proposed which, when a user wishes to watch a video of baseball, receives and displays a desired baseball program if the user gives an instruction that he or she “wants to watch baseball”. This appliance operates by assuming that the video of baseball that the user wishes to watch is a baseball program which is being broadcast at that point in time. In the days when this proposal was made, the appliance was sufficiently able to meet the user's expectation by such an operation. Currently, however, the video related to baseball are diversified. For example, Japanese professional baseball programs, high school baseball programs, US major league programs, and even video of last week's game of a sandlot baseball team to which the user belongs may be a target of viewing. Therefore, unless the user gives an instruction that precisely specifies which baseball he or she wants to watch, the appliance cannot provide a video of baseball as desired by the user.
In order to give an instruction of a specified content to an appliance, the user is required to perform very complicated tasks. Therefore, how the tasks can be reduced will become an important index that determines the performance of the appliance.
For example, if a request containing ambiguity is received from the user, it is preferable that the appliance is able to provide the user with a content which is considered appropriate. Moreover, if the selection that has been made by the appliance does not suit the user's intention, it is preferable that the appliance recognizes the situation and performs a process of providing a more appropriate content. For example, an increased convenience will be obtained if the appliance is able to request to the user for further information concerning the content, or if the appliance is able to select and provide another content based on the history of user manipulations or the like.
Patent Document 1 discloses a service providing apparatus which infers the user's intention based on the electroencephalograms of the user, and controls its own operation. After responding to a request of the user, this apparatus detects a biological signal of the user. Then, from this signal, it infers whether the response content has resulted in a disappointment or not, and upon determining a disappointment, modifies the response content.
[Patent Document 1] International Laid-Open No. WO2005/001677